PhD Proposal Presentation - Drew Owen

"Mixing and Sampling in a Microfluidic Channel Using Rotating Magnetic Microbeads"

Committee:

Dr. Peter Hesketh, Chair (ME)

Dr. Alexander Alexeev (ME)

Dr. J. Brandon Dixon (ME)

Dr. Hang Lu (ChBE)

Dr. Todd Sulchek (ME)

Title: Mixing and Sampling in a Microfluidic Channel Using Rotating Magnetic Microbeads

The objective of this research proposal is to create and study the use of a bed of rotating magnetic microbeads (3µm diameter) in a channel for mixing in a microfluidic channel and for capturing particles from a dilute fluid sample in a microfluidic channel. Rotation of the magnetic microbeads is created by actuating the beads via magnetized pieces of permalloy, an alloy of nickel and iron. These pieces of permalloy will be patterned onto glass wafers via microfacbrication techniques yielding features less than 10µm in size. The study will involve quantifying the effectiveness of both mixing and capturing using three different geometrical layouts of these features with multiple channel heights. For each geometry and channel height, multiple flowrates will be measured. Mixing will be characterized using two phase flow and quantified by examining the variance in fluorescent intensity. Capture will be quantified by taking real time videos of captured fluorescent particles. Capture of the fluorescent particles is performed by binding of functionalized proteins on the surface of the microbeads and fluorescent particles. This work will be used to build a higher throughput, multiplexed microfluidic device.